Etsy Feature: Emilymcdowelldraws

So inspiring, so beautiful, this is the effect her illustrations have on everyone.

 Whenever I see them, they make me smile and I am sure they are the reason of many others to smile too.

Today Emily shares her journey with us...

 Here is my absolute favourite one! 

- What is your favourite part of creating inspiring illustrated printworks?

E: There are so many things I love about the process, but I'd have to say my two favorite parts are 1) knowing I'm making something that inspires/touches the person who'll buy it -- I love knowing where my work ends up! -- and 2) being able to see my own ideas through from start to finish based on my own creative vision. I worked in advertising for many years before leaving to write and illustrate my own work full-time, and while there are things I loved about the process of being an advertising creative, the decision as to whether our ideas ever saw the light of day was ultimately up to our clients. So it's fun to be able to have an idea and go make it!

- Have you always wanted to do that?

E: No! I actually didn't know what I wanted to do until the last couple of years! I spent close to ten years climbing the ladder in advertising, and when I finally got to the place I thought I wanted to be when I first started in the business, I realized it wasn't right for me at all. I quit my full-time ad job in 2011 in order to freelance and figure out what I actually wanted to do when I grew up. :)

- Which is your personal favourite of them?

E: I have two -- the Joan of Arc quote, "I am not afraid, I was born to do this," both for the sentiment and the design. I feel like both of those things really represent me as a designer and a person. My other personal favourite is "You Are Doing A Fucking Great Job" -- I have that one on the wall of my office and I think none of us hear it enough!

- How does your normal working day looks like?

E: It varies depending on time of year and what deadlines I have approaching, but most days, I wake up, check email from my bed (a terrible habit!), then go into the studio. I spend the first half or so of every day responding to email, doing phone calls about licensing or with my sales reps, working on my website -- administrative stuff. I try to shift over to actually creating work in the second half of the day -- some days I'm more successful than others! When I'm on a deadline, I take illustration work home with me at night as well.

- What is your most memorable moment, when opening a shop on Etsy?

E: I’d always wanted to have a greeting card line, but I’d successfully talked myself out of it, thinking I could never make enough money, it was too hard, etc. Last January, I designed one last-minute Valentine card and had 100 copies of it printed, figuring I'd sell a few, and I put it in my Etsy shop. The next day, Etsy posted it on their Facebook page, and I hate using the phrase “went viral,” but it went viral. It got over 10,000 likes on Facebook (I think it may have been the most-liked post of the whole year?!) and my card ended up being featured on Buzzfeed, CollegeHumor, Reddit, Glamour.com, Design Sponge, 9gag, and a million other blogs. It was insane.

From my Etsy shop, I sold and shipped over 1,600 individual copies of that card to customers in 8 days(!?) and came out of the experience with the decision to create my own card line. So Etsy is really a critical part of the story of my business!

Thank you so much Emily!!

All images belong to Emilymcdowelldraws